Speaker 1: And now watching my mic back, you're like that.
Speaker 2: Time can strikes with waters from headquarters behind him to
Speaker 2: be the border.
Speaker 1: If you're just tuning in the civic cipher, I am
Speaker 1: your host, ramses Josh.
Speaker 3: I think you already know this when I go by
Speaker 3: the name Q.
Speaker 1: Yes, we do, and be sure to stay tuned. We
Speaker 1: still got a lot on more show in store for you.
Speaker 1: You're going to talk about the way the criminal justice
Speaker 1: system treats black people and hopefully share some things that
Speaker 1: you didn't know that we know very well. Unfortunately. You know,
Speaker 1: Q and I both have personal stories, uh not, I guess,
Speaker 1: not personal, but I guess in our family folks dealing
Speaker 1: with the criminal justice system and just how unfair it is,
Speaker 1: and you know, you're kind of fighting a hopeless fight
Speaker 1: just kind of sucks you and choose you up and
Speaker 1: swallows you. A little Later in the show, we're also
Speaker 1: going to talk about the first African American umpire in
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball. But first and foremost, let's discuss how
Speaker 1: to become a better ally. So give me a favorite.
Speaker 1: Make a note. There's a movie called Who We Are
Speaker 1: and I talked about this a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: I do a show for iHeartMedia. They have a vertical
Speaker 1: called the Black Information Network, and I host this show
Speaker 1: for them. And I got a chance to speak with
Speaker 1: the director of this film. Amazing film. If you're black,
Speaker 1: if you're white, it doesn't matter who you are, if
Speaker 1: you're a citizen in this country. It is a film
Speaker 1: worth watching. It will educate you. It educated me. And
Speaker 1: I'm I live this. You know, I does this, and
Speaker 1: I've found out some stuff, So I'll read this briefly.
Speaker 1: Former a c ACOU deputy legal director Jeffrey Robinson had
Speaker 1: one of the best educations in America. Went to Markette
Speaker 1: University in Harvard Law School in a trial lawyer po
Speaker 1: over forty years. Twenty eleven, Robinson began raising his thirteen
Speaker 1: year old nephew as a black man raising a black son.
Speaker 1: Struggled with that to tell his son about racism in America. How,
Speaker 1: he wondered, did we get here? And when he started
Speaker 1: looking at our nation's history, Robinson was shocked by what
Speaker 1: he had not known. The film interweaves historical on present
Speaker 1: day archival footage, Robinson's personal story, and observational and interview
Speaker 1: footage capturing Robinson's meetings of meetings with black change makers
Speaker 1: and eyewitnesses to history, from Hain Tree in Charleston, South Carolina,
Speaker 1: to a walking tour of the origins of slavery and
Speaker 1: colonial New York, to the site of a nineteen forty
Speaker 1: seven lynching at rural Alabama. The film brings history to life,
Speaker 1: exploring the enduring legacy of white supremacy and our collective
Speaker 1: responsibility to overcome it. Robinson shows us how legalized discrimination
Speaker 1: and state sanctioned brutality murdered disposition, and this possession, sorry
Speaker 1: and disenfranchisement continued long after slavery ended, profoundly impeding Black Americans'
Speaker 1: ability to create and accumulate wealth, as well as to
Speaker 1: gain access to jobs, housing, education, and healthcare. His words
Speaker 1: laid bare and all but forgotten past, as well as
Speaker 1: our shared responsibility to create a better country in our lifetimes. Again.
Speaker 1: The movie is called Who We Are. Watch it for
Speaker 1: me you will love it now. I mentioned earlier in
Speaker 1: the show about wrongful convictions a person that I very
Speaker 1: much look up to named Brian Stevenson, who has a
Speaker 1: program we call it the Equal Justice Initiative, and he's
Speaker 1: a lawyer, and what he does is he works to
Speaker 1: overturn wrongful convictions. Oftentimes he finds him he's a black man.
Speaker 1: He often finds himself helping out black men caught up
Speaker 1: in the criminal justice system again who've been wrongly convicted.
Speaker 1: He does help other folks almost everyone is poor, but
Speaker 1: but yeah, he finds that a lot of times black
Speaker 1: people end up in these strange situations. We mentioned confessions
Speaker 1: you know how police Earlier in the show, we mentioned
Speaker 1: how police can lie to you to get you to
Speaker 1: confess to things that you didn't do, something you may
Speaker 1: not know, and we'll end up doing a full episode
Speaker 1: on this. Is that there are about ten thousand laws
Speaker 1: in existence in this country, and that means that police
Speaker 1: have ten thousand ways two get you caught up in
Speaker 1: something that you didn't even know was wrong. You might
Speaker 1: think you're helping. If they want to, they can get you.
Speaker 1: I was, in fact, I was watching a documentary or sorry,
Speaker 1: a lecture from a police officer who said, you know,
Speaker 1: if I get behind you and I follow you long enough,
Speaker 1: eventually you're going to break some law and I'll be
Speaker 1: able to pull you over. And this is a real thing.
Speaker 1: I remember when I was in college, we had an
Speaker 1: officer teaching one of my classes back then, and he
Speaker 1: said he was an office. He was telling a story
Speaker 1: about sort of the mid nineties when I'm from the Southwest,
Speaker 1: so lowrider culture was real big then think you know,
Speaker 1: early to mid nineties Snoop Dog Doctor Dre death Row
Speaker 1: records this time in America, so lowriders were a big deal.
Speaker 1: So in college, this is my first year of college.
Speaker 1: This this officer was telling us that he was like
Speaker 1: a high up officer, maybe like a boss officer. I
Speaker 1: don't know what the rankings are called or whatever, but
Speaker 1: the main guy who told the other police what to do.
Speaker 1: And he says, hey, guys, we're going to get out
Speaker 1: in the streets and we're going to like clean up
Speaker 1: these streets or whatever. And so I want you pulling
Speaker 1: over every car that even crawls like a lowrider. And
Speaker 1: he explained how they were able to do it, which
Speaker 1: was effectually the same way. Just follow them until they
Speaker 1: break some you know, have some in fraction, and then
Speaker 1: pull them over, pull them out of the car, search
Speaker 1: the car, you know whatever. You know. To people where
Speaker 1: this is not their reality, it sounds crazy. It sounds like, well,
Speaker 1: if you just don't do anything wrong. The police won't
Speaker 1: bother you. No, the police won't bother you. This is
Speaker 1: called privilege, you know what I mean. So this doesn't
Speaker 1: happen to you, You might want to check that. And
Speaker 1: again I will say, because that word is triggering for
Speaker 1: a lot of folks. Privilege is not starting with more.
Speaker 1: It's just not starting with less. Okay, that's privilege. You're
Speaker 1: not starting behind the start line. These things and others
Speaker 1: frame the criminal justice system, you know, if it wants to,
Speaker 1: it'll just reach out, grab you, suck you, and you
Speaker 1: don't have to necessarily even do anything wrong. Of course,
Speaker 1: we know about if you do something wrong. There's disproportionate sentences.
Speaker 1: There's all kinds of crazy stuff that goes on, mistreatment,
Speaker 1: you know, at every step along the way, you know,
Speaker 1: which is more prevalent for black and brown folks than
Speaker 1: it is for non black and brown folks in this country.
Speaker 1: But the whole thing works very well for one group
Speaker 1: of people, and it doesn't really work so well for
Speaker 1: everyone else. And the people that it works well for
Speaker 1: are very supportive of keeping it the way that it is,
Speaker 1: and oftentimes they have enough votes or influence or otherwise
Speaker 1: to maintain the status quo. The world is perfect for them,
Speaker 1: then it should, in theory, be perfect for everyone. Otherwise
Speaker 1: we need to adjust to it. The thing is, it's
Speaker 1: very difficult to adjust to it when it eats up
Speaker 1: black lives. One such black life is the story I'll
Speaker 1: be telling you today. This comes from the Atlanta Black Star.
Speaker 1: A wrongfully convicted black man who successfully fought to have
Speaker 1: two murder convictions overturned and received a pardon from the
Speaker 1: North Carolina governor for those crimes, sued the city for
Speaker 1: six million dollars and one remember that he won wrongful
Speaker 1: convictions sued the city and one. However, officials in the
Speaker 1: city of Durham have rejected the jury's judgment, deciding they
Speaker 1: will not pay the award after spending money to fight
Speaker 1: the case. How about that? According to The News Observer,
Speaker 1: a federal jury found retired detective Daryl Dowdy, who spent
Speaker 1: thirty six years with the city, lied on Daryl Howard
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety five. As a result, Howard spent twenty
Speaker 1: one and a half years of an eighty year sentence
Speaker 1: in prison. A federal jury found that Doughty violated Howard's
Speaker 1: civil rights by fabricating evidence and purposefully conducting a poorly
Speaker 1: run investigation. These actions resulted in a jury convicting Howard
Speaker 1: of two counts of second degree murder and one count
Speaker 1: of arson. The costly trial lasted several weeks, with the
Speaker 1: city spending more than four million dollars in litigation and
Speaker 1: defense of the detective. Howard and his attorney argued Dowdy
Speaker 1: was given the authority by way of his badge, to
Speaker 1: set Howard up to be convicted for murdering Doris Washington
Speaker 1: twenty nine or thirteen year old daughter Nishanda in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one. The two females were found dead in their
Speaker 1: Few Gardens apartment. DNA evidence suggested both mother and daughter
Speaker 1: were sexually assaulted before they were set on fire. However,
Speaker 1: no DNA or biological evidence linked Howard to the crime
Speaker 1: scene or as the rapist. At one point, there was
Speaker 1: an eyewitness who testified against Howard, but his accounts were
Speaker 1: scrutinized for being vague or contradictory. The witness reportedly even
Speaker 1: recanted his story to police overtime. Let's call it collercion.
Speaker 1: I don't know that, so let me not call it that.
Speaker 1: I'm going to preserve some journalistic integrity here. But it
Speaker 1: looks like that. Okay, I'll say that all right. In
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, Durham Senior Resident Judge Orlando Hudson vacated Howard's conviction,
Speaker 1: but the state pushed back with an appeal. The Innocence
Speaker 1: Project decided this is different from Brian Stevenson, so this
Speaker 1: is called The Ennocence Project decided to represent the fifty
Speaker 1: eight year old, presenting new DNA evidence that led to
Speaker 1: a reversal of his conviction. Originally, Howard asked for forty
Speaker 1: eight million dollars in damages, two million for each year
Speaker 1: he was incarcerated, plus five million for the impact his
Speaker 1: imprisonment had on his life. The jury decided to award
Speaker 1: him six million dollars, so he didn't get the forty
Speaker 1: eight He got six million. But you know it's not nothing, right,
Speaker 1: Actually it is nothing. So despite this finding, the Durham
Speaker 1: City Council opted to withhold the recommended seven figure judgment
Speaker 1: in the case. The decision was made during a series
Speaker 1: of cold closed meetings over a three month span between
Speaker 1: December and February. City Attorney Kimberly Reeberg said this was
Speaker 1: the first time a jury made a bad faith finding
Speaker 1: huh regarding a city employee, quote, the city generally proceeds
Speaker 1: under the presumption that, however conduct may have been portrayed
Speaker 1: in a complaint, the employee was engaged in the good
Speaker 1: faith execution of their duties on behalf of the city
Speaker 1: and was thus entitled to defense and quote. One of
Speaker 1: Howard's lawyers, Brad Bannon, called his client an actual victim.
Speaker 1: They pay all that money, they enrich a bunch of lawyers,
Speaker 1: and then the moment they have to pay the actual
Speaker 1: victim of the city's conduct here, they said, we're not
Speaker 1: going to back this. He said about the decision. Quote,
Speaker 1: do you know how hard that? Sorry? Do you know
Speaker 1: how hard that is? In a system? Oh? Sorry, I'm
Speaker 1: saying it wrong. Do you know how hard that is
Speaker 1: in a system that gives police officers almost absolute immunity?
Speaker 1: There it is that gives prosecutions complete immunity. Ben In asked,
Speaker 1: it's not easy. I can tell you that, he said,
Speaker 1: noting that his client did it and won. It is offensive.
Speaker 1: That is not being honored. Weberg wrote in a statement,
Speaker 1: if the facts and circumstances of the claim or the
Speaker 1: suit in which the judgment is entered, showed that the
Speaker 1: officer or employee was engaged in good faith performance of
Speaker 1: his duties on behalf of the city when the act
Speaker 1: of omission, the act or omission giving rise to the
Speaker 1: claim or suit occurred. A jury of mister Dowdy's peers
Speaker 1: determined that mister Dowdy engaged in fabrication of evidence and
Speaker 1: bad faith failure to investigate. She continued, But that decision
Speaker 1: about Dowdy, not the city. The municipality's reaped suggest Initially,
Speaker 1: the city and other employees were named in the lawsuit,
Speaker 1: she said, but those claims are all dismissed her dropped
Speaker 1: by the time the case made it to trial. Dowdy's lawyer,
Speaker 1: Patricia Shields, thinks the city should pay and not leave
Speaker 1: her client with the bill. She revealed she had an
Speaker 1: inkling the city was not going to settle or pay
Speaker 1: a jury's judgment against Dowdy as far back as August
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, someone close to the case told her
Speaker 1: the city didn't believe they were obligated to pay if
Speaker 1: the court said he was guilty. She also questioned the
Speaker 1: rationale to spend so much of taxpayer's dollars to defend
Speaker 1: the former detective to simply refuse to pay the judgment, saying, quote,
Speaker 1: the city has known all along what Captain Dowdy did,
Speaker 1: decided to defend him on that basis. All right, we're
Speaker 1: almost on here. Poor People's campaign leader Reverend William J.
Speaker 1: Barber blasted the council decision, calling it an injustice. He
Speaker 1: noted the case wasted taxpayers money considering the millions of
Speaker 1: dollars they spent on a trial. The preacher called for
Speaker 1: the council to change their minds. Quote. While mister Howard
Speaker 1: didn't die, his life, died, his years, died his opportunity, died,
Speaker 1: his time died. You took twenty years, said Barbara. While
Speaker 1: the city is opting not to compensate Howard. Legal documents
Speaker 1: showed the city once the wrongfully convicted man to pay
Speaker 1: the legal fees of two city workers dropped from the
Speaker 1: original lawsuit. Okay, so let me boil that back down
Speaker 1: to you. This man was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned. Right
Speaker 1: police officer fabricated evidence, otherwise framed him to get that
Speaker 1: initial conviction. After twenty one and a half years, we're
Speaker 1: talking about black life and how the system, the justice
Speaker 1: system treats black life, and the reason why this case
Speaker 1: doesn't surprise us, but hopefully it surprises you. Hopefully this
Speaker 1: is not your norm, because then we're all in a
Speaker 1: lot of trouble, you know what I mean, not just
Speaker 1: black folks. But you need to know this, especially if
Speaker 1: you're not a black person, because you need to know
Speaker 1: the sort of things that happened to us that we're
Speaker 1: numb to. I'll continue the officer fabricated evidence. Man goes
Speaker 1: to jail for twenty one and a half years, he
Speaker 1: gets his conviction overturned, and he's awarded six million dollars
Speaker 1: in damages. Right, So that's a tragedy by itself because
Speaker 1: if someone asked me to go to prison for twenty
Speaker 1: one and a half years and I would get six
Speaker 1: million dollars at the end of it, I'd say absolutely not.
Speaker 1: I want to live my life. Right, I'm sure you
Speaker 1: would agree, But whatever, six million dollars. The city says, Nope,
Speaker 1: we're not going to pay. Knowing that after the new trial,
Speaker 1: all the new evidence that's presented, all the DNA everything,
Speaker 1: and it's not going to pay it. Then they say
Speaker 1: they want him to pay for the lawyer fees for
Speaker 1: the other city employees dropped from the complaint. Now, I
Speaker 1: know that this is kind of an example that kind
Speaker 1: of pulls from so many different things that black folks
Speaker 1: complain about. But I've shared on this show before that
Speaker 1: I have an older brother who went to prison for
Speaker 1: was it twelve or fourteen years something like that. For
Speaker 1: those of you who are fans of Merse from the
Speaker 1: Living Legends, LA underground hip hop group, there's a song
Speaker 1: called Oakie Dog. You can look it up on YouTube.
Speaker 1: It's a dope song and Mrs wrote that song about
Speaker 1: my brother. Okie Dog. Okay, I e ed Og. Check
Speaker 1: it out. Anyway, my brother bought a new Escalade when
Speaker 1: those were still new and was driving around in California,
Speaker 1: you know where there's a lot of carjackings and sort
Speaker 1: of them. He did have a gun kept it in
Speaker 1: the car just because carjackings. You know, he's he's a
Speaker 1: gun guy. I'm not a gun guy, So that'll be that.
Speaker 1: One night, there were some people that were kind of
Speaker 1: messing with his then girlfriend now life. She stayed with
Speaker 1: him when he was in prison. So shout out to Lou,
Speaker 1: we love you, Lou. Anyway, some guys were messing with
Speaker 1: her at an apartment complex, right, altercation occurred. My brother
Speaker 1: went and trying to protect his women from these guys,
Speaker 1: like kind of trying to you know, guys can be
Speaker 1: guys like hey, what's up lady, you know whatever, trying
Speaker 1: to touch on you whatever. Got his gun. After the altercation,
Speaker 1: shot the gun in the air to scare the guys away.
Speaker 1: Police get called out, my brother gets arrested. Now, if
Speaker 1: you're discharging a weapon in California, I think that's illegal
Speaker 1: or something like that. So you know, you get punished
Speaker 1: for that, probably not fourteen years of your life punished,
Speaker 1: but you get punished. But what they did was they
Speaker 1: called it attempted murder, and that changes things. And sort
Speaker 1: of good news early on was that it was on
Speaker 1: video because the complex had video cameras. Now I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know all the details of the story. A
Speaker 1: it was a million years ago, and b I was
Speaker 1: so much younger than that. They didn't want to share
Speaker 1: the details of the story with me, right, But I
Speaker 1: remember there being a video and everyone was so happy, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's a video, so clearly it shows the gun was
Speaker 1: getting shot in the air, not at the people. So
Speaker 1: it's not attempted murder. It's just simply discharging the weapon.
Speaker 1: And even though it's wrong, we understood why he did it.
Speaker 1: He wasn't just being an idiot. He was trying to
Speaker 1: protect his woman and scare these guys off or whatever.
Speaker 1: Somehow or other, that video was not allowed to be
Speaker 1: presented to the court as evidence, like somehow it was.
Speaker 1: I'm not a legal expert, so I couldn't tell you
Speaker 1: how or why, but that was what ended up happening.
Speaker 1: So what ended up happening was my brother had to
Speaker 1: accept a plea deal. Well he didn't have to because
Speaker 1: he had all the lawyers in the world. My other
Speaker 1: brother is a lawyer, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 1: there was a team of lawyers. But you know, the
Speaker 1: police kind of cornered him and scared him. I guess,
Speaker 1: you know. We talked about it a couple of times,
Speaker 1: but I don't know what was going through his brain
Speaker 1: in that moment. I feel like he was scared and
Speaker 1: he accepted a plea deal, which basically says, yes, it
Speaker 1: was attempted murder, don't go so hard on me, and
Speaker 1: I'll just go to prison. And so what the top
Speaker 1: end could have been maybe a year sentence for discharging
Speaker 1: a weapon, which again understandably if you got to sometimes
Speaker 1: you got to make that tough call, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, like, Hey, am I going to protect my
Speaker 1: family or am I going to and risk going to jail?
Speaker 1: Or am I going to just let this stuff happen?
Speaker 1: You know, when I'm outnumbered and there's clearly a lot
Speaker 1: of these guys and I have access to this weapon
Speaker 1: that could help, you know, protect us in this situation.
Speaker 1: So that decision ended up taking my brother away from
Speaker 1: all of us for I think it was fourteen years.
Speaker 1: I saw him one time in jail because he was
Speaker 1: so far away, and then I lived in a different
Speaker 1: state and just you know, we wrote letters and things
Speaker 1: like that, but I only was able to go see
Speaker 1: him once. I went to see him again, but they
Speaker 1: wouldn't let me go. And so that's a personal story
Speaker 1: that actually happened. Right. So this person we're talking about
Speaker 1: right now, Darryl Howard, a wrongful conviction. How the criminal
Speaker 1: justice just takes these people, and you know, black people
Speaker 1: are disproportionately represented in prison populations. Oftentimes people become instant initutionalized.
Speaker 1: You know, and you know, their prospects shift because now
Speaker 1: they've been in prison there, you know, this is all
Speaker 1: they know. You know, this is their skill set and
Speaker 1: they can't get a job. And then they've been hanging
Speaker 1: out with criminals for however long, so you know, they
Speaker 1: move like a criminal. Now they think like a criminal
Speaker 1: because that's what they've been around. They're trying to protect
Speaker 1: themselves at every move. So it's there to become institutionalized.
Speaker 1: And when they get back out on the streets, it's
Speaker 1: like your likelihood of reoffending skyrockets because you don't believe
Speaker 1: that you have any problem. What am I good at?
Speaker 1: What can I do? I've been in a box for
Speaker 1: one hundred years and now I have to figure out
Speaker 1: how to make money and live, you know. So there's
Speaker 1: a human element that I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: miss when it comes to, you know, the prison system
Speaker 1: by itself, but it's especially cool in how it treats
Speaker 1: black people. And we say that a lot on this show.
Speaker 1: But it was to kind of breathe life into a
Speaker 1: story and give you an example. And you know, I
Speaker 1: could have made this a footnote on a much bigger,
Speaker 1: you know, subject, but I felt like this kind of
Speaker 1: could stand on its own. So qute, I got it.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, man, I've been talking about this show, but
Speaker 1: I got about another minute. Give me how this hits
Speaker 1: you once again? There's no shockers here.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, you say that we make a concerted effort
Speaker 3: to not get numb to these things, and numb isn't
Speaker 3: the right word.
Speaker 1: I'm not numb.
Speaker 3: It It hurts just as bad. It makes me just
Speaker 3: as angry, It makes me just as discouraged and hopeless
Speaker 3: as always. Right, So it's not that it's numbing, it's
Speaker 3: not that I'm over it. It's like treading water permanently.
Speaker 3: We never get to come up for air. We never
Speaker 3: even get to sit on the boat. We're not swimming,
Speaker 3: we're not having a good time. We're just trying not
Speaker 3: to drown constantly inside the system that's designed for us
Speaker 3: to drown. And the power in this country, even when
Speaker 3: there are punitive damages, get to just say no, we
Speaker 3: don't want to, and then that has to be this
Speaker 3: man's reality. Yeah you won, and yeah we messed up.
Speaker 3: But and I know our listeners can't.
Speaker 1: See me, but well I think that that sound says
Speaker 1: it all. But yeah, it's maddening. Bro's it's.
Speaker 3: I have to get at the source so I can
Speaker 3: get some better words, because maddening doesn't even really say enough.
Speaker 1: Well. I feel like if we take you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of times we have these thought experiments on this show. Here,
Speaker 1: if we change black man to twenty six year old,
Speaker 1: blond haired, blue eyed white woman, I don't tell the
Speaker 1: same story. I don't know why you always put age,
Speaker 1: just because it just helps you. It just helps people
Speaker 1: to visualize who were talking. Yeah, but don't but don't qualify.
Speaker 1: It does not have to be a twenty something year
Speaker 1: old blond haired, blue eyed white woman. Fairpoint, fairpoint, change
Speaker 1: the race or the ethnicity to white. That's all. That's it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right. But yes, when you do that and you
Speaker 1: tell yourself the same story, does it sound the same?
Speaker 1: You know? And the thing is, we're trying to see
Speaker 1: what justice is. Justice is supposed to be blind. So
Speaker 1: in theory, it could be a person who is twenty
Speaker 1: six years old, you know, blah blah, it could be anyone.
Speaker 1: That's just in my mind, the easiest place to go,
Speaker 1: because it seems like that person gets justice more often
Speaker 1: than everyone. And so if that's the standard that we
Speaker 1: all are trying to meet. Then let's rethink these with
Speaker 1: a different sort of protagonist or antagon is, depending on
Speaker 1: how you feel, and see if the criminal justice system
Speaker 1: treats them the same way in your thought experiment. And
Speaker 1: if the answer is no, then you have recognized the
Speaker 1: same problem that we often recognize here. So moving on,
Speaker 1: it's time for the way Black History fact. It's an
Speaker 1: interesting one. You know, I'm not a sports person, and
Speaker 1: I'm not a baseball person, you know, in particular like that.
Speaker 1: If I was going to do sports, I think it
Speaker 1: would probably be basketball or something like that. But this
Speaker 1: one was interesting to me because I've been reading a
Speaker 1: lot about cases of discrimination when a black person was
Speaker 1: the first person to cross into a new field or
Speaker 1: into a new position or whatever. I recently read a
Speaker 1: book called Segregated Skies was able to interview the author
Speaker 1: the author again on my my show with the Black
Speaker 1: Information Network. Be sure to check out that podcast. It's awesome.
Speaker 1: Look up Black Information Network. You can't miss me. I'm
Speaker 1: the one with the hair. And uh, you know, obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, with Katanji Brown Jackson being nominated to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, you know, I just kind of realized that,
Speaker 1: you know, her getting there was only kind of the
Speaker 1: first step in the battle, that she might endure some
Speaker 1: some troubling things, you know, until she's firmly established in
Speaker 1: the consciousness of the country and of her peers. As
Speaker 1: you think that's going to change something for her. But
Speaker 1: I'm you know me, I'm an optimist man.
Speaker 4: So wow, but but wow, wow, I'm being gracious as
Speaker 4: as I do you know this, but I recognize that
Speaker 4: a lot of times there's an uphill battle there.
Speaker 1: So I'll read. I yanked this from Wikipedia. It was
Speaker 1: all I really needed, not looking for factual things, just
Speaker 1: kind of tell a story here, so forgiven. Emmett Littleton
Speaker 1: Ashford November twenty third, nineteen fourteen to March first, nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nickname ash was the first African American umpire Major
Speaker 1: League Baseball, working in the American League from nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: six to nineteen seven League. Ashford was born in Los Angeles, California.
Speaker 1: His father, Lyttleton, was a policeman, but abandoned the family,
Speaker 1: leaving Ashford's mother, Adele, to raise Emit and his brother Wilburg.
Speaker 1: Ashford earned money selling Liberty magazine and is a cashier
Speaker 1: in supermarket. Ashford attended Jefferson High School and was co
Speaker 1: editor at the school paper, played baseball, track, and was
Speaker 1: a senior class president. He attended Los Angeles Junior College
Speaker 1: and graduated from Chapman University in nineteen forty one. And
Speaker 1: about nineteen thirty six, he took a job as a
Speaker 1: post office clerk, position he held for fifteen years. In
Speaker 1: the late nineteen thirties, Ashford briefly attempted to play semi
Speaker 1: pro baseball, but turned to empiring move he was asked
Speaker 1: to fill in for an umpire who did not show
Speaker 1: up for a game. He served in the Navy during
Speaker 1: World War Two and was inspired to become the first
Speaker 1: black Major League Empire wall station in Corpus Christi, Texas
Speaker 1: when an announcement came on the radio that Jackie Robinson
Speaker 1: had broken baseball's color barrier. In nineteen fifty one, Ashford
Speaker 1: took a leave of absence from his Santa Anna, California
Speaker 1: post office job, where he moonlighted as a Santa Anna
Speaker 1: Municipal League Softball National Night Ball League of Southern California umpire.
Speaker 1: His colorful style included a personal trademark when a batter
Speaker 1: received a base on balls. Instead of simply calling ball four,
Speaker 1: Ashford would grandly intone ball FOA, you may proceed to
Speaker 1: first base. He left Santa Anna to umpire in the
Speaker 1: Southwestern International League, becoming the first black umpire in the
Speaker 1: traditionally white professional baseball system. When he was offered a
Speaker 1: full season umpiring job, Ashford resigned from his post office job.
Speaker 1: After the Southwestern International in the league folded mid season,
Speaker 1: Ashford joined the Arizona Texas League. He moved on to
Speaker 1: the Western International League in nineteen fifty three and was
Speaker 1: promoted to the Pacific Pacific Coast League in nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 1: He worked with C. C. Carlucci as his crew chief
Speaker 1: for nine hundred and twenty two games. He spent twelve
Speaker 1: years in the PCL and became known for his exuberance, showmanship,
Speaker 1: and energy, even interacting with the crowd between innings. During
Speaker 1: the off season, Ashford refereed pack eight basketball games in
Speaker 1: college football. He also umpired in the Caribbean Winter Leagues
Speaker 1: and ran several umpiring clinics. In nineteen sixty three, Ashford
Speaker 1: was named the PCL's umpire in chief, making him responsible
Speaker 1: for training crews and advising the league on disputed games
Speaker 1: or rules by early nineteen sixty. By the early nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: many West Coast sports riders began to suggest that Ashford
Speaker 1: be promoted to the major leagues. In September nineteen sixty five,
Speaker 1: Ashford's contract was sold to the American League. Ashford made
Speaker 1: his debut at DC Stadium on April eleventh, nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 1: Before then, it was all white men. He quickly became
Speaker 1: a sensation, becoming known for his sprinting around the infield
Speaker 1: after foul balls or plays on the basis, Ashford also
Speaker 1: brought a new style of being an umpire. He wore jewelry,
Speaker 1: including flashy cuplings, and wore polish shoes and freshly pressed suits.
Speaker 1: While some observers believed that his race prevented him from
Speaker 1: working in the majors earlier than he did, others maintained
Speaker 1: that his flashy style actually delayed his major league debut
Speaker 1: due to general disdain for umpires to draw attention to themselves.
Speaker 1: Sporting News stated that for the first time in the
Speaker 1: history of grand old American game, baseball, fans may buy
Speaker 1: a ticket to watch an umpire perform. Ashford was the
Speaker 1: left field umpire in the nineteen sixty seven All Star Game,
Speaker 1: and worked all five games in the nineteen seventy World Series,
Speaker 1: but did not work home plate. Ashford was one of
Speaker 1: the only umpires fiery Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver was
Speaker 1: ever nice to. During a game during a double header
Speaker 1: against Washington on April thirteen, nineteen sixty nine, Ashford ruled
Speaker 1: that a ball hit by Ken McMullan had landed fair
Speaker 1: in left field, when in actuality Don Bufford had caught
Speaker 1: it just before it hit the ground. Weaver went up
Speaker 1: to Ashford and politely asked him, quote, can you change
Speaker 1: your call? Just ask the other umpires because I understand
Speaker 1: you couldn't see it where you were running from end quote.
Speaker 1: The other umpires all said Buford had made the catch,
Speaker 1: so Ashford reversed the call. Ashford reached the American League's
Speaker 1: retirement age of fifty five in December nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: but still umpired one additional season in nineteen seventy before
Speaker 1: retiring in nineteen seventy one. Ashford was hired by Bowie
Speaker 1: Kohn as the public relations advisor, a role in which
Speaker 1: Ashford spoke and held clinics on the West Coast and
Speaker 1: as far away as Korea. He also served as an
Speaker 1: umpire in chief for the Alaskan Summer League for three years.
Speaker 1: He appeared in television commercials, playing a cashier in an
Speaker 1: ad for AMP grocery stores. Ashford also appeared as an
Speaker 1: umpire in the nineteen seventy six film The Bingo Long
Speaker 1: Traveling All Stars and Motor Kings, and in episodes of Ironside,
Speaker 1: The Jackson's and What's My Line, in which Ashford appeared
Speaker 1: in his first major league season. Ashford was also a
Speaker 1: contestant on the November seventeen, nineteen fifty five TV edition
Speaker 1: I Bet Your Life. Ashford was inducted into the Baseball
Speaker 1: Reliquery's Shrine of the Eternals in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: He died of a heart attack in at age sixty
Speaker 1: five in Marina del Rey in California. Upon his death,
Speaker 1: Bowie Kuhn issued a statement saying quote, as the first
Speaker 1: black umpire in the major leagues, his magnanimous nature was
Speaker 1: sternly tested, but he was unshaken and uncomplaining, remaining the colorful,
Speaker 1: lively personality he was all his life. At his funeral Ashford.
Speaker 1: Ashford was eulogized by Kuhn and former USC baseball coach
Speaker 1: Rod Did. Ashford was cremated and his ashes were interned
Speaker 1: in Cooperstown, New York. Sorry that was a lot of reading,
Speaker 1: but all these firsts coming my way, I feel like
Speaker 1: it's important to celebrate them. Perhaps in honor of Katanji
Speaker 1: Brown Jackson becoming the first black woman to be nominated
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court. A statistic I read was that
Speaker 1: ninety three percent of all air commercial airline pilots are
Speaker 1: still white. So first really matter, representation matters, and of
Speaker 1: course Emmit Littleton Ashford matters. But that's going to do
Speaker 1: it for us today on Civic Cipher. So once again,
Speaker 1: I am your host, Rams's Jah. I go by the
Speaker 1: name Qward and the United States was founded July fourth,
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy six. It is twenty twenty two, and we're
Speaker 1: still introducing the first black person to do stuff. How
Speaker 1: about that? Well, you can always find out more about
Speaker 1: our thoughts on the Tanji Brown Jackson by checking out
Speaker 1: the website and downloading any one of our old episodes
Speaker 1: at civiccipher dot com. Of course, you can follow us
Speaker 1: on all social media at Civic Cipher. Hit us with
Speaker 1: any topics and questions, suggestions. You know it's our show,
Speaker 1: but it's your show too, so let's do it together
Speaker 1: and until next week, y'all pains, y'all like yo, we
Speaker 1: handle it. These brothers are fabulous.
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Speaker 2: And this from a white wartime journalist headlines wait God,
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